You May Be Surprised To Learn Which 2 Countries Are Making The Globe A Lot Greener

By:

Dan Charles

The world is getting greener.

That's according to Chi Chen, a doctoral student in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University. Chen has been mining data collected by an orbiting NASA camera that monitors green vegetation on Earth's surface, day by day.

This week, Chen and his colleagues published a new study showing that the amount of our planet's land surface covered by green leaves increased between 2000 and 2017.

The extent of the global greening is bigger than previously measured using other, less precise instruments. Even more interesting: Chen was able to pinpoint the causes of increasing — or decreasing — leaf cover in particular areas.

In some places, changes in leaf cover apparently resulted from weather and climate change. The growing season is getting longer in some temperate areas, and rising carbon dioxide levels may be producing bigger, leafier plants.

One large area of Brazil lost vegetation. "I personally checked the data, and that's because of drought," Chen says.

The most striking changes, though, were the result of human decisions in China and India. Both countries have been getting a lot greener.

Molly Brown, a geographer at the University of Maryland, has seen this greening up close. "These are really good examples of how policy can really make a difference," she says.

The greening of India, Brown says, comes from a huge expansion of irrigated agriculture: "Instead of having just crops when it's raining, they also have a whole six months of cropping and greenness when it's not raining."

This version of greening isn't really so great for the environment, though. The irrigation drains groundwater, vegetation is wiped away at harvest time and the extra fertilizer farmers use releases greenhouse gases.

In China, though, about half of the new leaf cover that Chen detected appears to be the result of a massive reforestation effort. It's a government-sponsored attempt toprevent catastrophic dust storms that resulted from earlier deforestation.

"They are really doing a good job," Brown says. They have a large and comprehensive program of tree growing, tree planting, tree maintenance."

Those trees likely will stay in place, capturing dust and also carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas. They'll store that carbon in wood and roots and soil, doing their part to slow global warming.

Upcoming Events

Description: Join us for a free virtual Science Summer Camp - Forensic Fun - Wildlife Forensics! Learn various forensic science techniques including forensic entomology, forensic botany, and more! This is a free, online camp – all you need is a computer and an internet connection. We'll release new camp videos from 10am - 2pm on June 8! While camps are geared toward 8-11 year olds, kids of all ages are welcome to participate, including families! Be sure to check out all three of our Science Summer Camps in June at https://biodiversity.ku.edu/free-summer-camps DETAILS June 1 (week of) - Instructional guides for Forensic Fun will be shared, so you can review the activities before camp begins. June 8 - CAMP BEGINS! At 10am, connect with museum education and outreach staff on our Facebook page for all the fun! We'll share new camp videos every hour until 2PM with fun learning experiences and activities. Be sure to share pics of your camp experience with us here on Facebook, or email us at biodiversity@ku.edu June 15 (week of) - We'll answer camp questions on Facebook and share photos campers have sent in! Submitted by: Anne Tangeman KU Natural History Museum

Description: Join us for a free virtual Science Summer Camp - Science-PALOOZA! Science-PALOOZA covers many different science topics including chemistry and biology through hands-on activities and demonstrations exploring geography, polymers, binary code, and more that you can watch from home! This is a free, online camp – all you need is a computer and an internet connection. We'll release new camp videos from 10am - 2pm on June 10! While camps are geared toward 8-11 year olds, kids of all ages are welcome to participate, including families! Be sure to check out all three of our Science Summer Camps in June at https://biodiversity.ku.edu/free-summer-camps DETAILS June 1 (week of) - Instructional guides for Science-PALOOZA will be shared, so you can review the activities before camp begins. June 10 - CAMP BEGINS! At 10am, connect with museum education and outreach staff on our Facebook page for all the fun! We'll share new camp videos every hour until 2PM with fun learning experiences and activities. Be sure to share pics of your camp experience with us here on Facebook, or email us at biodiversity@ku.edu June 15 (week of) - We'll answer camp questions on Facebook and share photos campers have sent in! Submitted by: Anne Tangeman KU Natural History Museum

Description: Join us for a free, virtual Science Summer Camp - Expedition Forest Floor and get ready to go on a virtual field trip! Explore the forest floor with staff from the KU Natural History Museum to learn about the properties of soil and the diversity of life it supports. This camp explores soil and its communities of microorganisms through hands-on activities and demonstrations you can watch from home to understand the role soil plays in a forest community! This is a free, online camp – all you need is a computer and an internet connection. We'll release new camp videos from 10am - 2pm on June 12! While camps are geared toward 8-11 year olds, kids of all ages are welcome to participate, including families! Be sure to check out all three of our Science Summer Camps in June at https://biodiversity.ku.edu/free-summer-camps DETAILS June 1 (week of) - Instructional guides for Expedition: Forest Floor will be shared, so you can review the activities before camp begins. June 10 - CAMP BEGINS! At 10am, connect with museum education and outreach staff on our Facebook page for all the fun! We'll share new camp videos every hour until 2PM with fun learning experiences and activities. Be sure to share pics of your camp experience with us here on Facebook, or email us at biodiversity@ku.edu June 15 (week of) - We'll answer camp questions on Facebook and share photos campers have sent in! Submitted by: Anne Tangeman KU Natural History Museum